Computer shows a blue screen when I view Flash-format videos with Firefox 4

[Palass]

I hope you can solve this annoying problem that I am facing. Whenever I watch YouTube videos or any other Flash-format videos online my computer crashes immediately showing a blue screen. I cannot do anything after that. I did not face any problem before this but now suddenly this blue screen is coming. I want to know if anyone else is having similar problem and whether it’s the problem with my Firefox or adobe flash. I have searched for the solution everywhere, but no one could help me. I hope you can solve this problem. Thanks in advance.

[Bharat89]

So your problem it seems to me more related to your hardware I think, since your computer crashes instead of just the browser. So, I'd like to ask you if you're certain of the driver version of your video card being the latest one. What video card are you using? This problem has to be something with the video card; it could be a hardware problem or an out-of-date driver. My advice to you is to install the latest version of the driver from the website of the company. Maybe it will help. By the way, what error code do you see on the blue screen? Just note down the code next time, it will surely help to analyze your problem. Awaiting your reply.

[Palass]

I tried as you said to note the code, but initially it was impossible for me to write it down, as the blue screen appeared for some milliseconds and the PC automatically restarted. So, to stop from restarting I changed the setting from control panel to stop form automatically restart when there is a system failure. Following is the code I get on the blue screen: “STOP: 0x0000008e (0xe0000001, 0xb83f8925 , 0xb00e72e4, 0x00000000)
watchdog.sys address b83f8925 base at 083f8000, datestamp 48025496” . My driver is NVidia 270.61 and I have Google Chrome browser. I think the drivers I have got are the latest ones coz I recently updated them.

[Roxy_jacob]

The problem is with the hardware acceleration. Adobe Flash supports hardware-accelerated H.264 decoding, as an advanced feature to improve its performance. But it increases the CPU activity of the PC especially when viewing YouTube videos. The solution is to disable hardware acceleration in the Flash player. For doing this - Right click on the YouTube video > settings and uncheck 'enable hardware acceleration'. This will permanently disable the feature and you can now watch the videos smoothly. And yes, do keep updating the graphic drivers as this might give you problems too. Hope I have helped.

[Henryosa]

The blue screen you are getting is called the “Blue Screen of Death”. It is the error check for bugs and fatal errors displayed by the Windows. They are always related to hardware or drivers mostly, and they stop your computer from responding to prevent any damage to your hardware. It is a nice little feature introduced by Microsoft. Now, as per your problem, it seems your hardware is sometimes overloaded with work and so it crashes. So, try out the disabling hardware acceleration as suggested on Flash and also you can disable it on the browser you are using. Just go to its setting and disable the acceleration and you won’t have problems with it.